SLPD Has Gotten Away With Murder Before

Last year, the Alameda County District Attorney's office released its report on the officer-involved shooting and death of Anthony Robert Gomez on June 11, 2019. You can read a copy of it here. Additionally, you can read the original arrest report as well as the internal investigation report.

Mr. Gomez had not been charged with a crime. He was unarmed. The pretext for this encounter with Mr. Gomez was a domestic disturbance between himself, his mother, their neighbors, and the neighbors’ children. One of the neighbors called 911 with inflated allegations of a machete-wielding man exposing himself to children.

The DA’s report reads like a classic case of an end looking for an excuse for its means, a facade to place around a paper tiger. Here are some of the highlights from this transparent incompetence:

1. No warning before the officer shoots Mr. Gomez in the neck.

2. No deescalation or crisis resolution attempts are captured on bodycam footage or listed in the reports, and oddly some footage is actually missing that could provide insight into the exact sequence of events in real-time.

3. No use of other weapons, such as a taser or bean bag round before resorting to lethal force.

4. No rationale for unleashing the K9 unit after Mr. Gomez had been shot.

5. Interviews from Mr. Gomez's mother, Gloria Tim, and his girlfriend are kept purposefully short and devoid of detail, unlike the accounts given by the officers on the scene or the neighbors and their children.

6. Witnesses 3, 4, 5, and 6 (AKA the neighbors) were the ones involved in causing the initial domestic dispute by squirting Ms. Tim’s van with mustard. Indeed, as Ms. Tim stated repeatedly, those neighbors and their children had been harassing her and her son, as well as vandalizing their property for weeks. Their actions were part of a pattern of abusive behavior that falls firmly within the realm of resolving domestic conflicts, not a deployment of armed force. Sadly, when she tried to sort out such a petty issue openly with her neighbors, it was those individuals who escalated the situation and then lied to the police after the fact.

7. No follow-up on the embellishments and false reports from the neighbors, such as the claims of indecent exposure or possession of a machete. In fact, no follow-up at all about the credibility of the 911 caller or the neighbors or their children. Given the ongoing domestic issues, the neighbors would be legally and financially responsible unless they could justify Mr. Gomez as some violent deviant. To date, it’s unknown if the 911 caller’s false report was ever prosecuted, demonstrating the need for legislation like that proposed by AB 1550 last year. It’s also unknown if witnesses 3, 4, 5, and 6 faced consequences or were held accountable for their false testimony.

8. Seemingly no weight or credibility was given to the testimony of Ms. Tim. In fact, the DA's office takes SLPD’s account at face value while simultaneously dismissing and/or denying Ms. Tim’s account despite the fact that she was at the scene for the entire duration. In fact, she was the only person at the scene before, during, and after the 911 call. She was also the only person on scene before, during, and after the shooting of Mr. Gomez, besides SLPD. She was actually just a few yards away near one of the officers when the shooting occurred. You can read more about her account at https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Family-of-man-killed-by-San-Leandro-police-13990093.php. 

9. A completely irrelevant, victim-blaming discussion of whether Mr. Gomez was intoxicated or not, as if drinking beer at your own home is suddenly a crime or justifies murder. Indeed, there’s no proof that there was sufficient alcohol in his system to affect his judgment or capabilities. They even attempted to argue that he was also high on drugs.

10. The copy of the DA’s report on the city's website is intentionally scanned in low-res to not be searchable and disguise the fact that the small piece of wood Mr. Gomez was holding looks nothing like a gun. Despite SLPD's best efforts to make something as ridiculous as this make sense, it never will, and only shows how desperately they needed to justify this murder.

11. The DA and SLPD reports mention a machete multiple times. Descriptions of the items taken from Mr. Gomez's home and the area nearby do include a variety of knives. However, none of them were on his person at the time he was murdered. Indeed, witness testimony and SLPD’s own investigation confirm that Mr. Gomez didn't have a gun or a machete when he was confronted. He didn't even have a knife. According to Ms. Tim, earlier during the domestic dispute “[h]e did have a knife but it was like the handle was in his hand and it was like up against his arm he didn’t show anybody the knife he didn’t raise the knife he did nothing at all like that I told him I say take that and go back home,” and Mr. Gomez did exactly according to every single account from that day.

12. No serious discussion of Mr. Gomez’s mental or emotional state. He had been enduring relentless torment from his neighbors and their children for weeks. He had also been struggling with depression, anxiety, and other personal problems. He was on his own property, sitting on his porch several yards away, and had police officers with weapons trained on him. He was scared and angry and the police did nothing to serve and protect his right to life and due process.

Now I could go line by line by line in the 25-page DA report, the 175-page police report, and the 574-page internal investigation report, dissecting each inaccuracy, each unsupported allegation, each inconsistency. But that would be a waste of time and irrelevant. This isn’t about whether Mr. Gomez was an objectively good person or bad person or whether, if he was alive, he would have been convicted for a crime.

Indeed, we've seen these kinds of tactics before to discredit victims of police violence and justify even the most egregious actions taken by law enforcement. As noted by the press at the time, the only reason that Mr. Gomez's family didn't file a lawsuit against the city was because they couldn't afford to. They just had to bury another family member and try to move on despite the injustice.

Oh, and who was the officer that shot and killed Mr. Gomez? That would be Michelle Woods, an SLPD veteran. In fact, after she murdered him, another officer on the scene, Dennis Mally, unleashed his canine partner. Mr. Gomez's arm was torn into by the police dog despite already being dead.

What was the department’s justification for their brutal and lethal force in this situation? They claimed Mr. Gomez was holding a reddish-brown piece of wood about the size of a cell phone that allegedly looked like a gun and that he also allegedly pointed at police officers.

How were the cops so confused? According to the evidence, there were 6 police officers on scene with lights directly on Mr. Gomez at his home, providing a significant amount of illumination in combination with the lights from the house. Not to mention the fact that it was daytime!  Unfortunately, because of the DA’s rubber stamp, we never get to find out, leaving this as just among the many other everyday items that police claim to be weapons. See, for instance, https://www.thewrap.com/trevor-noah-daunte-wright-death-taser-gun-virginia-police-black-army-lieutenant-daily-show-video/.

But what is the least surprising, yet most disappointing result of this whole situation is that every single one of the officers involved in the murder of Anthony Gomez is still employed by SLPD and getting their six-figure salaries with benefits.

Then-Sergeant Enguange Abe Teng is now acting Lieutenant for SLPD’s patrol division.

Then-Officer Ted Mund is now an acting Sergeant.

Officer Pantoja killed an unarmed suspect just last September.

Officer Chris Albert used to be one of our school resource officers and had previously been hailed as heroic for helping a little boy struck by a car in 2015.

Officer Mike Olivera is actually the current president of the San Leandro Police Officers’ Association and previously choked a man, a former Army reservist, until he was unconscious, as well as inflicted a concussion and other injuries over a falsified charge of public intoxication.

Officer Dennis Mally has previously been sued, along with the city, for a previous instance of excessive force, assault, and other civil rights violations.

As for Officer Michelle Woods, well she made a tidy sum of $121,767 dollars that year, as well as $9,867 in overtime and $16,349 in other income. Never let it be said that crime doesn’t pay — when you’re a cop.

As I've pointed to many times before, this is just another instance of the problem with policing, particularly with respect to racist violence against BIPOC. The “bad cops” aren’t fired or disciplined. Instead, they get promotions and accolades and pay raises. Meanwhile, we’re left to wonder. What about the “good cops”? Because their silence is deafening. Their silence stinks of complicity. Their failure to act is the surest evidence of the necessity for police reform and defunding in combination with the reimagining of how we provide public safety.

While you’re worried about “bad apples”

We’re wary of the roots 

Because no healthy tree 

Naturally bears strange fruit

— Poem by Jessica Foster, June 2020.

Now, the District Attorney’s office may not have had the courage to charge any of these officers with a crime, but if we want to be able to say with a straight face that we wished Anthony Gomez was alive, then we need to discard any attempts to justify why he still had to die. We need to start asking the hard questions about responsibility, accountability, transparency, and competency. We need to start talking about what justice is supposed to look like in a system so fundamentally flawed that it would rather rationalize murder than stop profiting from it.

Take note and take care.